Un-"threat"-ing Iran: An Interview With Stephen Kinzer

Author Stephen Kinzer discusses the motivations behind the targeting of Iran, the emotional impulses that fuel American interventions around the world, and the strategy that may finally deliver the US from its "regime change" habit.

Amid the foreboding language of the Petraeus/Crocker hearings, the Bush administration's assessment of fighting in Basra and Baghdad, and some Congressional Democrats'
incendiary words - at a hearing last week, Congressman Gary Ackerman warned
that "Iran's nuclear cauldron continues to boil and bubble" - the
specter of an Iranian threat to the US would seem to have grown to monstrous
proportions over the past few weeks.

However, according to Stephen Kinzer, bestselling author of "All the Shah's
Men" and "Overthrow: American Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq,"
it's the specter of a US threat to Iran which has really mounted as of late.

"Every time I pick up my newspaper and read about what's coming out of
Washington, my fears of an American attack on Iran intensify," Kinzer told
me during an interview last week.

Indeed, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made perfectly clear
in their testimony that the administration would not rule out a military strike:
Petraeus cited "help[ing] Iraq resist Iranian encroachment on its territory"
as a main goal, and Crocker declared, ominously, "Iran has a choice to
make."

Last week, President Bush warned that, should Iranians continue supplying Iraqi
militants, "then we'll deal with them." And during a briefing in Baghdad
on Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly cited Iran as the
major force spurring militias and "special groups" in Iraq.

During our interview, Kinzer pointed to the hypocrisy of Bush admonishing Iran
for intervening militarily in Iraq. Kinzer stressed that the US must recognize
the legitimacy of Iran's integral role.

"The fact is, Iran does have influence in Iraq, and Iran always will have
influence in Iraq," he said.

The two countries are tied religiously, politically, historically and geographically,
and the US is in no position to sever those ties, according to Kinzer. Rather,
he suggested, we might use them to our advantage, viewing Iran as "our
ticket out of Iraq."

By cultivating Iran's involvement in Iraqi politics and allowing it to fulfill
its responsibilities as the region's most powerful country, the US could begin
to take more of a backseat without ostensibly abandoning Iraq.

"All the Shah's Men" reminds us that, when it comes to Iran, the
backseat is probably where we should be sitting. The US was responsible for
the 1953 coup that toppled Iran's democratic government, replacing it with the
repressive Shah regime, which hastened the Islamic Revolution of 1970s, inspiring
the rise of radical groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Yet the US has not yet taken its Middle East history lessons seriously. Kinzer
noted that our attitude toward Iran and Iraq is symptomatic of the US's overriding
tendency toward using military force to shape economic policy - in this case,
oil management - to its advantage.

Kinzer's most recent book, "Overthrow," shows how the "regime
change" model has developed over the past 110 years. In our interview,
he discussed the motivations behind that empire-driven mentality - and why,
ultimately, it's doomed to fail.

"As long as the US arrogates to itself the right to decide which governments
may live, and which must die, these interventions are never going to work out,"
Kinzer said.

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is an assistant editor and reporter for Truthout.